Satisfying the Fry Bread Fix --
East Valley Café Offers New Source of Native Home Cooking
By Jan-Mikael Patterson
(courtesy Navajo Times)
Mesa, Ariz. - Urban Indians often wait a long time to dive into food that reminds them of home back on the reservation.
In Catherine Flores’ case, she satisfied her mutton and fry bread fix only at the Arizona State Fair, annual powwows, or Native art shows. But it still wasn’t the home-cooked food she remembered from Shiprocck, but it was darn near close.
Now residents of Mesa and surrounding communities don’t have to travel far, thanks to Arizona Native Frybread, located at 1437 E. Main St. in Mesa.
You’ll find it just west of Stapley Drive, nestled behind a Long John Silver’s restaurant. Look for the huge yellow and red letters spelling out “Navajo Frybread” on the windows.
The restaurant is owned an operated by Robert Gilson, White Mountain Apache, and brothers Sean and Dewayne Lewis, originally from Klagetoh, Ariz.
My son told me about this place,” Flores said as she ate lunch recently with her family. “I’ve known Shawn and Dewayne for a while. I met them when we moved here.”
Flores, 53, and her daughter Ana Smith, 21, haven’t been back to Shiprock since Flores’ mother passed away five years ago. She lives in the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community with her husband Marc Flores.
Her son Randall Clah, 29, discovered the restaurant and tipped his mom that it served authentic home-cooked meals like those most reservation residents grew up on.
Polishing off a bowl of hominy stew and fry bread, Flores said she knew the Lewis brothers because their food stand was a common sight at events around the Phoenix area. She knew there were looking to open a restaurant, and said, “I knew the food was going to be good.”
After lunch, she was ready to take a handful of flyers and menus to help publicize the restaurant’s opening two weeks ago.
“Food like this in this area is very rare,” Flores said. “Especially when you move away from home, you want to go some place to eat some good food. This is the only second place in the Valley (serving Native food).”
Phoenix residents can seek out the Frybread House downtown at First and Washington streets.
Until about two weeks ago, Arizona Native Frybread was a pizza and pasta joint called Roma Café. Opening the restaurant was a crash course lesson for Gilson, who learned about business the hard way.
As it happened, the Roma also offered Frybread on the menu, and “the frybread was selling better than the pizza,” Gilson said.
He took note of the Lewis brothers’ thriving food stand and in November, he approached them about partnering up to run a restaurant with a Native American menu.
The Lewis’s had the experience to prep and cook favorite Native foods, and to find the ingredients and specialty items needed to capture an authentic flavor.
“They have a following too,” Gilson added. “A lot of people know who they are from the powwows and art shows. They both brought a following of people (to the new restaurant)”
“They’re also pinon entrepreneurs,” chuckled Gilson.
The Lewis’s at first purchased pinons from family who picked them on reservations, but as demand grew they went to the trading posts that buy pinons in volume each fall.
The delicacy is hard to come by these days, but during the season it is one of the Lewis’s hottest items.
“We also have Native teas,” Sean added, referring to the herbal brews that are still common in many Native homes. “We have a different types that we brew here. A lot of non-Natives like them.”
Since partnering with the Lewis brothers, Gilson said his life has gotten a little easier. He also works nights with Qwest Communications and has a family.
“Shoot, I would only sleep for an hour or no sleep at all” when running the Roma Café, he said. “You see all these white hairs? That’s what happened.”
So far the menu at Arizona Native Frybread includes frybread and tortillas – including the parasol-sized Apache tortillas. Navajo lamb sandwich, and Navajo and Apache tacos and burgers. Plans to add more items are in the works.
Meanwhile, Gilson reports that the new venture is breaking even financially, even without an advertising budget.
“That’s all without advertising,” Gilson said. “It’s all based on word of mouth.”
“Some of the comments we get are ‘We would have to wait until the state fair to get our frybread filling.’” Sean Lewis said. “Now they have a place to eat and it’s closer for the people who live in the Valley.”
Along with diners from nearby Scottsdale and Chandler, customers are driving in from North Phoenix, Casa Grande, and even Tucson.” Lewis said.
And it seems the food’s appeal is not limited to people who grew up on Native home cooking.
“That’s the unique thing when customers, Native or Non-Native, come up to the register and comment on the food,” Sean said. “That means a lot to us.”